Not Stupid
by i am a firebird
Summary: Just a oneshot I wrote about a less-stupid Harry, meaning to make him into more of a Slytherin. Read it and tell me what you think. T for language. "Harry Potter was many things-but he was not stupid. Later in life, he would reflect that this had been the start of all his problems."


_Thank you SOSOSOSOSOSO much to everyone who's read and reviewed so far! This is my first ever fanfic and your comments mean more than I can say. It's kinda like someone cast a Cheering Charm on me, I'm grinning so widely right now. Unfortunately, I will not be developing this beyond a oneshot, but I am playing around with the idea for a long AU series written in a similar style. All I'll say is, if I can get my thoughts in order, you'll be seeing a lot more of a not-stupid Harry from me, just not necessarily this one. Again, THANK YOU! _

_Anyway, this is just a quick idea I had. Dunno about anyone else, but while I really did enjoy canon Harry (I wouldn't be posting here otherwise), I really love when Harry ISN'T STUPID. I mean, the Hat wanted him in Slytherin, but I never saw any evidence of any sort of attribute that would make him belong there. So—this is the way I pictured him. I hope you like it!_

_**Prologue**_

_**June 1985**_

Harry Potter was many things—but he was not stupid.

Later in life, he would reflect that this had been the start of all his problems. Well, not all of them—Voldemort killing his parents and then trying to kill him had had nothing to do with Harry's intelligence, or perhaps, lack thereof. Then again, if you asked Harry, that was a relatively minor problem compared to the ones he'd face later.

That probably said something significant about just how screwed up Harry Potter's life would be.

But, at that moment, Harry was four years old, nearly five, and four-year-olds didn't _reflect, _no matter how (thankfully) not-stupid they may be. So, he didn't see any need to focus his attention on how his considerable mental capacity might cause him problems later in life. Instead, he focused on the matter at hand: picking the lock to Mrs. Figg's attic.

Now, you see, a _stupid _child—and most children were, make no mistake about that—when bored, might start kicking a ball around, or playing make-believe, or some other such rubbish. But Harry wasn't stupid, and he'd never particularly enjoyed football or other team sports, and living in a cupboard under the staircase of relatives who hated you certainly shattered your innocence beyond the point where you could possibly find playing make believe enjoyable.

Harry wasn't stupid, but he was bored, so instead, he was picking a lock.

Harry's nearly-five years of life had been a unique experience so far, to say the least, and so, he had, seemingly without even trying to do so, developed a set of rather peculiar skills. Which had something to do with why he was currently using one of his Aunt Petunia's hairpins to force entry into the attic of his elderly, cat-loving, fussy, and as of the past _hour, _sleeping-like-the-dead neighbor.

Despite being luckily not-stupid, as previously established, Harry was still four—er, nearly five—and he still got bored.Mind-numbingly, achingly, _bored. _Honestly, what _did _that woman expect him to do when left to his devices in her house that long of a period of time? Sit and twiddle his thumbs? Like a good, perfect child was supposed to do?

Perfect children didn't exist. There were children that were "bad" to varying degrees and then there were those that were exceedingly good actors. Harry was of the latter and dammit, he was bored and effectively alone, locked in an old woman's house that smelled like cats and cabbage and the misery of small children. He was not going to sit still.

He was going to explore.

Harry had always been rather skilled at sneaking around. It may have just as well been in his blood. Had he presented this theory to his Uncle Vernon, he would have readily agreed and gone into a lengthy monologue on how the Potters had been unemployed, good-for-nothing alcholics who had died in a car accident, but Harry was disinclined to believe anything Vernon Dursley told him about his parents.

Honestly, the man was a bloody walrus with legs. Anyone who had managed to convince themselves _and _their wife _and _their son that obesity was not only not even a slight health risk, but to be _ENCOURAGED _couldn't possibly have a brain any larger than a large raisin. Or perhaps a small grape.

Anyway, Harry was sneaky. Of course, he could've blamed that on his relatives—if he didn't have to creep out of his cupboard in the dead of the night simply to feed himself, maybe he wouldn't need to know how to be sneaky. So _there._

Not only was Harry sneaky, he was bloody well _good _at it, which was why it was only a matter of time before the lock, and consequently the door, clicked open.

He tiptoed up the dusty, creaky stairs, taking care not to make too much noise. He'd learned from previous visits that when Mrs. Figg slept, she slept deeply and didn't wake up until the doorbell rang, signaling that Aunt Petunia had come to take him home. Today, the Dursleys had taken Dudley and his friends to the fair, promising that he could go on each ride three times because he'd been on each one twice last year, so it would be at least another three hours or so before he had to leave.

In the past, Harry had made do with being able to watch Mrs. Figg's TV, but it was broken—Dudley had smashed it when he "accidentally" threw a rock through the elderly woman's window. Harry still wasn't clear on how someone _accidentally _threw not a pebble, but a fist-sized rock, at a window.

After having attempted to find something to occupy himself for the past hour, Harry had absentmindedly reached into his pocket to realize with great delight that he, for some reason, had brought his favorite lock-picking pin. And so, less than five minutes later, Harry found himself standing in Mrs. Figg's attic.

The attic was filled with cardboard boxes. Harry sighed in disappointment—he knew he couldn't possibly unpack and repack them, that left too much possibilty for evidence. The Dursleys were already convinced that he was the spawn of the devil—nothing he could do would ever change _that_—but Mrs. Figg thought he was a polite, sweet, misunderstood young boy. It was actually disturbingly similar to Aunt Petunia's perception of Dudley, now that he thought about it, but that was because of how stupid she was about her son. Mrs. Figg trusted Harry because of the image he projected, and that image would be absolutely ruined if she found any reason to suspect that he had been digging through her attic. Then she would never leave him alone—Harry shuddered at the thought of how many pictures of cats he would have to pretend to be interested in. So, unpacking the boxes was definitely out, but what else was he supposed to do to occupy himself?

Harry almost turned to leave in search of some entertainment, which he _seriously_ doubted he would find, when a pile of multicolored textbooks in the corner caught his eye.

Harry wasn't a bookworm, per se, but honestly, sometimes he just had _nothing better to do. _He'd always been a curious child, so at some point—he didn't know exactly how it had happened—he'd taught himself to read. And this was another one of _those_ times—he just had nothing better to do.

Harry thought they were just normal, boring old textbooks, but upon a closer look, he blinked in shock—they were most definitely _not _normal.

Sure, they were textbooks. But the pictures on the cover were _moving. _And the title of the book on the very top of the stack read _A History of Magic._

_ "There's no such thing as magic!" _Uncle Vernon's voice echoed in Harry's head. Funny, how he'd always felt the need to be quite so insistent about it…

Now, Harry wasn't stupid—he knew these books could just be a hoax. But there was no harm in reading them and finding out, now was there?

An hour later, Harry's Aunt rang the doorbell and escorted him home. He didn't need an escort—honestly, the Dursleys lived just down the street—but he knew he wasn't in any position to argue.

Even after thoroughly perusing the mysterious "magical" textbooks he'd found, Harry still didn't know if they were legitimate or not. He wanted to believe in this hidden world of magic so badly, but he didn't want to get his hopes up.

So, Harry thought back to the book that had been titled _Hogwarts, A History_—it was time to test his aunt.

"Aunt Petunia, have you ever heard of something called Hogwarts?" he asked innocently.

His Aunt suddenly paled dramatically and whirled to face him. "_What did you say?_" she hissed with a strange combination of fear and anger.

"Hogwarts," he repeated. "Mrs. Figg was muttering that word in her sleep, you see, and I wondered…"

"That school does not exist!" she insisted in a vehement whisper. "And don't ask any more questions!"

Once he had been ushered back into his cupboard, Harry let a triumphant smirk bloom across his face. He'd never said anything about it being a school.

He wasn't sure exactly what he'd stumbled upon, but whatever it was, it was _big _if it got his Aunt that riled up_. _Oh, yes, Harry was going to _very _much enjoy his next stay with Mrs. Figg.

If only Harry Potter had been the tiniest bit more stupid, he wouldn't have taught himself to read at that early an age, or he wouldn't have found those books, or he wouldn't have felt the need to read them. But Harry wasn't stupid. That was how all of his problems started, it seemed.

But it was how all of his enemies' problems started too.

A Harry Potter that was _educated _about the Wizarding World before he entered it? Oh, bloody hell, Voldyshorts was _not _gonna know what hit him.


End file.
